USA Twitter jersey campaign bringing fans along for the ride

SAO PAOLO — Tweets with the @ussoccer hashtag started trending on Twitter several hours before the U.S. team arrived at the stadium for its game against Ghana. Fans tweeted their support, and in return were sent a digital jersey customized with their name.

With celebrities like Conan O’Brien and Tiffani Thiessen getting on board, the campaign has been a hit. Nearly 9,000 personalized jersey tweets have been sent to fans through Wednesday. Those tweets were viewed by other Twitter users more than 197,000 times.

“I hope to be able to see the game against Germany the following Thursday,” she said in an email to USA TODAY Sports. “It’s exciting and it’s every four years and anything can happen. I’ve got my US Soccer jersey and I’m cheering for them. I’m a big fan of U.S. Soccer.

“My race helmet has a lot of the United States flag in it and has for as long as I can remember. I never played soccer growing up, but a good friend was really into it. I’m excited to see what they can do.”

Phelps watched Monday’s game and is a fan of the English Premier League and the FIFA World Cup video game. With a meet this week in Santa Clara, he too will try to catch as much soccer as he can.

Given the followers on Twitter that athletes and stars have, the gospel of soccer is spread to a new audience, U.S. Soccer communications manager Neil Buethe said. “Overall, it’s a great way to reach the non-soccer, or as we say soon-to-be soccer fans, by connecting through social media,” Buethe said. U.S. Soccer has also focused on bringing its die-hard fans along for the ride.

To create the virtual jerseys, U.S. Soccer and Twitter worked with Digigraph, a company that connects fans to stars with digitally autographed photos. For this project, they build a custom Twitter card that sends the jersey tweets back to fans.

Fans can buy the wearable versions of those shirts for $89.99, which Howe called a “pretty sizable purchase price for discovering a campaign through social media.”

As part of its “One Nation, One Team” campaign, U.S. Soccer also asked fans to send messages of support via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. A selection of those messages have been plastered everywhere the team has traveled. They’ve appeared on players’ luggage tags, in locker rooms, even on the game ball for the final friendly vs. Nigeria.

Before the game against Ghana, this message from @meghanbrennan was on the locker room wall: “We Can. We Will. We Are One Nation. One Team.” At the team’s Sao Paulo FC training base, there’s this quote from @nickverlaney: “When you take the field, you take us with you. Pound the crest with pride.”